


If You Could Feel My Heart Beat Now

by nihilistic_trout



Category: RWBY
Genre: Fair Game Week (RWBY), Fair Game Week 2020, Family Shenanigans, First Dates, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23211283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nihilistic_trout/pseuds/nihilistic_trout
Summary: After dancing around one another for weeks, Qrow and Clover are finally going on their first date. For Fair Game Week 2020 Day 2.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	If You Could Feel My Heart Beat Now

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my second (late) installment for Fair Game Week 2020! This is going to be at least a two chapter fic, but I wanted to get chapter one out for this event. The title is from a song called 'Sledgehammer' by Fifth Harmony.
> 
> Again, the T rating is only for some small amount of language (not enough to even merit the T rating, in my opinion, but I like to err on the side of caution with that).
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this one and I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Prompt: Date

Qrow fiddled with the carefully folded rolls of fabric at his elbows and contemplated pulling the sleeves back down to his wrists for the third time in almost as many minutes. An old familiar energy thrummed just beneath the surface of his skin. Restless blood. That was what the elders of the Branwen tribe had called it once as if some wandering spirit had found its way into his veins and gotten itself trapped there. He had learned to manage it over the years with varying degrees of success before finding what he had thought to be the cure in a flask. Of all the lies he had ever told, that one was the worst, and now he was having to learn to tame that unbridled energy all over again. Though he had to admit, the circumstances that had brought it back weren’t quite what he had been expecting. 

He scanned the safe parts of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His gaze flitted from the collar of his button-up black shirt to the near-invisible embroidery that trickled like raindrops down the left side of his chest, to the delicately woven silver bracelet Yang had talked him into, which had taken the place of his normal black cuff for the night. He even wore a small matte silver stud in his left ear, though he wasn’t entirely certain when that had happened. Not for the first time, he realized he probably should have kept this whole thing to himself until after the fact, but Ruby had asked him what his plans were for the evening and it had just sort of... slipped out.

Mistake number one.

The second had been trusting Yang when she told him they were going on a 'quick outing to find something more suitable than his battle attire’. That outing had turned into an all-day excursion with Weiss, Ruby, and Yang dragging him to every damned boutique and clothing store in Atlas. He’d lost track of how many shirts he had tried on, how many debates there had been over fit and style, how many times the girls had gone back and forth over belts and shoes and jackets and the gods alone knew what else, because he sure as hell didn’t. He had checked out within the first hour, only coming to in order to veto the more ridiculous options he had been presented with. He suspected he had Blake to thank for the fact that he had at least ended up with something that felt like him. The girl had been the only point of sanity throughout the whole ordeal. 

The thought of it all made him laugh, a sound caught somewhere between real amusement and some giddy brand of anxiety he wasn’t used to. He braced his hands on either side of the sink and closed his eyes, pulling in a deep breath.

_Calm down, Branwen_ , he told himself. _It’s only a date_. 

A low whistle broke through his thoughts. He shot a sideways glance towards the door as Yang came into view and propped her shoulder up against the frame. She looked him over, her mouth pulling into a tight, satisfied grin.

“Yep,” she said. “That was definitely the way to go.”

“Why are you still here?” he asked irritably. Teasing. Mostly.

She smirked. “You think I’m going to miss this? When was the last time you had a date?”

Qrow shot her a dirty look. “Been a little busy saving the world, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Yang waved a dismissive hand through the air. “That’s no excuse.”

Qrow shook his head and didn’t respond. He would never admit it aloud, but she had hit dangerously close to one of his deeper fears. He _hadn’t_ done this in a very long time. Even as a student at Beacon, dating had never been his forte. He didn’t have the personality for it. The preening and the posturing was fine for a night or two, but he had always found it extremely difficult to move beyond that. And if that hadn’t been enough, the fact that he had rarely ended a date without someone having food spilled on them, or a heel breaking, or his companion getting hit in the eye by someone’s chucked proposal ring had certainly done the trick. 

Some of his discomfort must have come through in his expression because Yang stepped into the bathroom beside him and laid her hand on his shoulder. She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled.

“You have nothing to worry about, you know,” she said. “He’s totally into you. Has been practically since you got here.”

Qrow tried for a smile. And there it was. That was what scared him most of all. Clover had been interested almost from the beginning. Which meant it was only a matter of time before he figured out that whatever he thought he saw wasn’t who Qrow was. He tried to shake the old fear he had held from the time he was a kid, tried to remind himself that they had spent the better part of the last six weeks together and Clover had done nothing but make an honest effort to get to know him better. But it still lingered there in some old, shadow-filled part of himself that he had never managed to break away from. He was coming to accept that he probably never would.

Pulling his mind back to the present, he ran a hand through his hair and then looked at Yang with a shrug that said pretty much what he thought: this is as good as it gets.

Yang rolled her eyes dramatically and took him by the shoulders, turning him toward her. She fiddled with the collar of his shirt, undoing one more button than he had intended and folding it out wide to show his collarbones. 

“You’ve been dancing around each other for weeks,” she said. “Let the man see a little skin.”

Qrow narrowed his eyes at her. “Yang.”

His niece shot a playfully evil look through her lashes and grinned. “You’ve been corrupting me for years and _that’s_ too much?”

He groaned. “Your dad really is going to kill me.”

“Please. If he hasn’t done it yet, he’ll probably never get around to it.”

“How comforting.”

She breathed out a sharp laugh and then stepped back, studying her work. He held out his arms to the sides. 

“Well?”

She held up a finger. “One more thing.”

Reaching around him, she pumped some of the hair product he had decided against into her hand, then reached up and pushed his bangs off his forehead, scraping it all back. She wiped her hands on her pants and then gestured towards the mirror. Qrow heaved a sigh just to annoy her and turned to look, and froze. 

He should have been prepared for it. Really, he should have. He didn’t normally look at himself in mirrors. It was nothing he did consciously anymore; he had been avoiding his own reflection for so long that it was second nature now. And now he hardly recognized himself. Clear eyes, filled out cheeks, skin lacking the slight sickly pallor he had gotten so accustomed to. He looked… healthy. A little terrified, true, but healthy.   
  
Yang closed in behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, standing on her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder. All the teasing was gone from her face and voice.

“You look really good, Uncle Qrow.”

There was more hidden in that statement than he felt he could absorb at the moment. So instead he reached up and patted her hand, and this time his smile came a little easier.

“Thanks, firecracker.”

She squeezed him and then leaned in close to talk right into his ear. “He’ll never know what hit him.”

Qrow elbowed her lightly in the ribs and she stepped back, laughing. He opened his mouth, ready to start teasing back. If she thought he wasn’t still fully capable of playing this game, she was going to learn otherwise very soon. A knock at the door saved her and then Ruby screeched from out in the living room loud enough to be heard ten floors down.

“He’s here!”

Qrow scowled. He knew he had done plenty to deserve the punishment that the world had decided to heap on him in the form of his two nieces and the half-dozen other teens lounging in his living room, but this was cruel even for how his life usually went. 

“I’m going to shove you all in a tube and ship you back to Tai.”

“Better do it quick,” Yang said, tilting her head towards the hall with a smirk. “Ruby’s letting him in.”

“Fuck me sideways,” he muttered and, with one final look in the mirror, he grabbed his jacket and dashed out of the bathroom.

By the time he got out there, Clover stood in the small front entryway smiling good-naturedly while Ruby, Weiss, and Nora practically had him cornered back against the door. They spoke on top of one another, a high-pitched chorus of suggestions and questions that they lobbed out at such a rapid rate, Qrow half expected one of them to keel over from lack of oxygen.

“Where are you going?” 

“Somewhere _exciting_?”

“Are you taking a car?” Weiss asked. Her tone made it clear which answer was the acceptable one.

“Uncle Qrow falls asleep in cars.”

“I heard there’s a local art exhibit in Mantle. A little culture couldn’t hurt either of you.”

“You’re taking him to get food, right?” Nora asked. She pressed into Clover’s personal space and stretched onto her toes in some comical effort to bring her face closer to his. Going for intimidation, probably- food was always a serious matter for Nora- but Clover was so much taller that her nose nearly bumped against his chest in the process. 

“Of course,” Clover said. He tried to discretely shift back and regain some breathing room, but his shoulders only bumped against the closed door and Nora, being Nora, didn’t back down. His expression, impressively enough, only faltered a little, eyes widening in a show of mild alarm that, embarrassing for both of them or not, Qrow _would_ tease him for later.

“Don’t go for seafood,” Ruby said. She leaned in towards Clover as if to whisper some secret, but her words carried through the entire apartment. “It gives him indigestion.”

Qrow groaned. He could have dropped dead right there and it would have been a mercy. So, naturally, he kept right on breathing. 

Clover looked up at him for the first time and he broke out into a grin so open and honest, it made Qrow feel ridiculously, stupidly, wonderfully warm. A sliver of that warmth crept onto his face and, gods, but he hoped no one noticed. One quick glance at Yang leaning against the end of the couch by Blake told him that hope didn’t deserve to live. 

“Atlas doesn’t have much in the way of seafood,” Clover said. He held Qrow’s gaze, solid and still there, despite the ambush from the kids. Despite everything. “I think we’ll be safe.”

“Good,” Weiss said. “And make sure he…”

_And that’s enough of that._

“Alright!” Qrow said, loudly enough to cut over the top of whatever tirade they were about to go on next. 

He waded through the kids, ignoring Jaune’s not-so-subtle thumbs-up and grabbing Ruby’s shoulder to spin her out of his way. Ren and Blake were the only ones who had the decency to sit quietly on the couch. Maybe he could replace Yang and Ruby with those two. He liked them well enough.

“Back off, all of you.” He reached Clover and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hello yourself.” Clover smiled back and reached out for his hand. “Ready?”

“Please.”

Clover stepped back and opened the door, pausing to wave at everyone inside. “Have a good night, everyone.”

“Have him home at a reasonable hour!” Ruby called, entirely too happy.

“Or don’t,” Yang said, a little too off-handed to be entirely innocent. 

The apartment erupted in laughter. Qrow snatched the nearest solid object- one of Nora’s shoes, he thought- and hurled it at Yang with all the strength he had. She danced out of the way and it bounced harmlessly off the side of the couch… and then knocked into a lamp that tipped, the shade breaking, the lightbulb shattering across the floor. She cackled and Qrow pointed at her fiercely, a promise that he would get her back for all this later, before he swung the door shut and flopped back against it, one hand over his face.

“I am so sorry,” he said, voice slightly muffled.

Clover chuckled and Qrow felt warmth in front of him a second before reassuring hands landed on his shoulders, squeezing. “Don’t apologize. I’ll admit, the welcoming committee was a bit of a surprise, but if that's what it takes...”

Qrow dropped his hand and looked up at him. Sometimes, he wondered how the hell Clover Ebi was real. “Surprises around me can be worse, believe me. Not too late to change your mind.”

Clover smiled softly. “Not going to happen.” His eyes swept over him again, slowly this time, and he didn’t bother hiding his appreciation. “You look fantastic.”

Qrow smiled and shrugged. “Thanks. They helped.”

Clover raised his eyebrows. “All of them?”

“Mostly Yang, but… yeah, they all had a say.”

One of Clover’s hands slid down his arm in way that should not have been as sensual as it was, and he laced their fingers together. “Remind me to thank them.”

Qrow snorted and let himself be pulled away from the door as they headed towards the elevators at the end of the hall. “Don’t encourage them. They’re bad enough already.”

“They all seem to care about you a great deal.”

Qrow glanced at him and narrowed his eyes. “Are you about to launch into another ‘ _Qrow needs to love himself_ ’ lecture?”

Clover gave him a look of mock affront. “I take offense to that. I _never_ lecture.”

“No? What would you call it?”

“Nudging with tact,” he said without missing a beat.

Qrow threw his head back and laughed, and the fears from earlier shrank back into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for chapter 2: the actual date ;)
> 
> As always, comments are very much loved and appreciated. I try to respond to all of them, but if I miss yours, know that it still means the world to me and thank you in advance for taking the time to leave one.


End file.
